Today’s Wake County school board work session should give an indication of how board members want student achievement/diversity to be used in developing the new multi-year student assignment plan.

The work session is supposed to focus on the achievement pillar of the student assignment policy after last month’s session looked at the other three pillars: stability, proximity and operational efficiency. The challenge for school leaders as they develop a new plan to fill the 16 schools that will be built from last fall’s school bond issue is juggling how to apply all four pillars.

Several board members said at last month’s work session that they expect the new plan to do things like try to limit the numbers of low-income and low-achieving students at schools.

Board members have also said they want to have realistic walk zones for schools. But when that realistic walk zone impacts the achievement piece, which factor should be weighed higher?

Once board members give their guidance, student assignment staff will begin applying it to a first draft of a plan that could be out for public comment in the next few months.

The WakeEd blog is devoted to discussing and answering questions about the major issues facing the Wake County school system. WakeEd is maintained by The News & Observer's Wake schools reporter, T. Keung Hui.